Choosing the Right Smartphone for Business

Your work takes you to clients’ offices and distant cities, to business dinners and scouting trips. When you need to leave your office behind, the right smartphone can give you a strategic, competitive advantage. Here’s what to look for—and why one of the Samsung Galaxy Series models might be the best business smartphone for you.

Choosing the Right Smartphone for Business

Your work takes you to clients’ offices and distant cities, to business dinners and scouting trips. When you need to leave your office behind, the right smartphone can give you a strategic, competitive advantage. Here’s what to look for—and why one of the Samsung Galaxy Series models might be the best business smartphone for you.

In these times of “agile” offices and frequent business travel, most corporate IT decision makers think the use of smartphones in the workplace increases productivity, and many companies are opting to pay for employee smartphones. But whether or not your company is picking up the tab, you should be smart about choosing the right business smartphone.

To get the optimum business benefit from your smartphone, look for features and qualities that can elevate your device from a mere portable office into an indispensable tool that helps to increase your on-the-road productivity. So what are the features of an ideal smartphone for business use?

Hands-Free Operation When You Need It

Moving trains, bumpy planes, and careening taxicabs can make keyboard typing difficult, so it’s useful to have voice activation, like Samsung Galaxy S Voice, which can call up programs and information at your command. And when you’re hanging on for dear life on that metro train, Smart Stay is intelligent enough to recognise your eye movements, so it won’t shut down while you’re reading from the screen—no need to touch it to keep it on. And you can dial a selected number just by putting your Galaxy series smartphone to your ear.

Sharing for Team Productivity

If you need to communicate with your officemates, look for a smartphone that can facilitate business teamwork with the ability to transfer data or host WebEx conferences. Samsung Galaxy devices allow you to do both. The S Beam feature lets you transfer data—even large files—remotely from phone to phone. AllShare Cast lets you use the Galaxy to wirelessly project presentations (including slide shows, PowerPoints, and video) to a large, AllShare Cast–enabled screen.

International Portability

Global business often requires global travel, so it’s important that your business tools be lightweight and portable. Samsung Galaxy devices are exceptionally slim, and can be enabled for international travel to more than 220 countries by swapping out the SIM card, so you don’t have to get a loaner phone or pay exorbitant per-minute rates. (Of course, data rates vary from market to market. Always check with the local provider for specific rates.)

Quick, Efficient Operation

Given all the variables of working on the road, you need a smartphone with a processor speed that won’t slow you down. The Galaxy S III’s 1.4GHz Quad Core processor provides the speed you need to access your apps efficiently.

Ease of Input

If you’re doing market research, you’ll no doubt use your smartphone’s camera to snap reference photos. A large display will let you see the details of what you’re taking (the Galaxy S III has a large 4.8-inch high-resolution AMOLED™ screen, and the Galaxy Note II screen is a whopping 5.5 inches).

The S Pen on the Samsung Galaxy Note II makes jotting ideas and information incredibly easy. You can even jot over images and save or send your notes. Pop-up windows allow you to take notes while on the phone or while other apps are open, so you can multitask.

Ultimate Business Safety and Security

With the explosion of mobile devices sending and receiving information, it’s especially critical to protect business data. Look for a smartphone with built-in encryption and data security features. The Samsung Galaxy series of smartphones can run Cisco, so you can transfer data securely to connect to a company virtual private network. The Galaxy series’ On-Device Encryption (ODE) protects against data loss when a device is lost or stolen. And the Samsung Galaxy S III’s security module has obtained FIPS 140-2 certification, the highest security accredited by the U.S. federal government.

All-Around Toughness

Make sure your device can easily back up your data (Galaxy devices can play, sync, back up, and restore your content seamlessly across all devices via the cloud). And your smartphone will likely need to withstand some bumps and bruises, so make sure the model you choose is durable. The face of the Samsung Galaxy S III is made with Corning® Gorilla® Glass 2, which is tough and scratch resistant.

And when you need to relax after a long day of doing business on the road, Samsung Galaxy devices provide extended hours of video viewing—and, of course, the ability to call home.